What I did during Chinese New Year 2006

I've spent yet another Chinese New Year holiday in my hometown, Penang. I always see the trip as a task that I have to carry out in order to fulfil my duty as a daughter and spend this festive season with my dad in Penang. I guess CNY is not as fun as it used to be... Only the two of us having reunion dinner now, no more red packets for me (I'm married, that's why!), and it's just down right boring.

These are the activities that I carry out in Penang every year, without fail:

1) Sleeping
I'm usually deprived of sleeping when I'm in Singapore. Not that I'm so busy that I have to sacrifice my sleeping time, but I think I spend too much time surfing net, reading books/ cookbooks, slouching in front of TV, or simply do nothing.

When I was in Penang last week, I've slept more than 12 hours a day, from new year eve to 3rd day of CNY. During those few hours that I was awake, I had a constant throbbing in my head, due to too much sleep (huh?). That got me thinking... why do I have to "torture" myself like this?!

2) Reading

When I was not sleeping, I read. I could read any of my old books, from Enid Blyton's Famous Five series, to old copies of Reader's Digest, or even my secondary school text books! That tells you how bored I was...

3) Meeting up with friends
After leaving Penang for so many years, I've already lost contact with all but two of my friends. Chinese New Year is the only time that we meet up, catch up with each other's life and to check out each other's wrinkles and white hair. haha!

4) EATING!
I miss Penang food all the time, and so I always try very hard to eat as much as I can whenever I'm in town. However, as I only go back there during CNY, my mission of eating all my favourite hawker food has been a failure all the time, since all chinese food stalls are closed during this period of time. This time round, I didn't manage to eat some of my favourites like Hokkien mee (prawn noodle), penang laksa or "char kuay kak" (fried carrot cake)... sigh...

These are some of food that I ate when I was in Penang last week:

Fried kuay teow

Lor Bak

Kuay Teow soup

After I'm back to Singapore, I found out that I've been tagged by mumu for "Five Food Challenges for 2006' meme. I'll try to squeeze in some time to do it this weekend.. if it's possible. =)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi Grace!
I know how you feel. I'm Singaporean, but after i got together with my husband, I spend every CNY in Johor in his hometown. I also do what you do, except the meeting friends part, cos I know no one there. Bored, I am, every time!
Anonymous said…
WHY oh WHY does the food in Malaysia always look and taste better than food in Singapore? :)Hmm...:)